A/N: TW - blood, torture, cuss words.
The next chapter will be up this Sunday. Please let me know what you thought of this one. Thanks!

"I am haunted. All my dreams are nightmares"

– Susan Sontag

His eyelids were so fucking droopy. It felt like he was waking up from the biggest drunken episode he had ever had. And there was pain too. He had a hard time placing it.
But how? He hadn't drunk that much last night. The last thing he remembered was getting into his car with the who…
'No. Oh no. No fucking way'
As he opened his eyes wider, his vision cleared. There was a single light bulb on the table to his right, a really powerful one. In its light, he could see the whore from last night. She was standing before him against the wall. And she wasn't blonde no more. She wasn't even wearing the same clothes.
And where the hell had she brought him?
He tried to move his arms, but couldn't. Leslie looked down at his arm and saw his wrists tied to the chair he was sitting in. The massive bulk of his entire body was tied up in that chair like he was an animal.
Indignant with rage on seeing himself bound, he gave a mighty tug at the restraints. What the fuck was it? Tape? It wouldn't even budge.
"Hrrmph!"
Try as he might, he couldn't speak through the gag she had shoved in his mouth. He tried to spit it out, but there was tape on his mouth too.
'When I get out of these, I'm going to show this bitch what…'
Why did she have a hammer?
Without saying a word, she walked to him with it. Did she think she could hurt him with that little garden tool?
"MMRRMM!"
Cruckkk.
His knuckles made a scrunching noise when she slammed the hammer on his hands. He didn't get another chance to scream as the hammer went down a second time, breaking his index and middle fingers. The pain shot through his hand making him recoil.
Thud! Crrrackk!
"MMMRRM!"
The bitch broke his thumb next. The pain was beyond anything he had ever endured. He tried to scream in vain. But the hammer went down on his other hand.
'MERCY!'
All that came out of his mouth was another muffled sound too faint to hear. His fingers dangled loosely from his hands, the pain making him see white before his eyes.
But the bitch wasn't done.
She walked to the table with her back to him. When she turned he saw a nail gun in her hands.
'No, God. Please. Please…'
He bawled his eyes out when she shot a nail right through his foot, pinning it to the floor. His other foot suffered the same fate.
One nail each didn't satisfy her. Leslie cried helplessly as she fired two more nails in each foot. Hot, sticky blood began to trickle down his feet, forming a little pool.
She stood up then and pointed the nail gun at his left hand. Leslie tried to shake his head no, tried to scream too, but he couldn't move his neck either. She had rendered him completely immobile.
Searing pain cut through his hands once again as the nails pierced through his flesh and cartilage. He tried to scream and curse, but his throat felt raw and dry. The pain was so much he would have gladly died in that moment. But the woman looked him in the eye, demanding his attention. Her green eyes looked eerily calm for what she had just done to him.
"You have killed people, four that I'm sure of. We wouldn't have crossed paths if you hadn't killed my brother"
'Her brother? But I only ever killed that one guy', he realized, 'Oh fuck. The man outside El Paso'
"You stabbed him because you couldn't get your dick up to rape him. You like experimenting with pain. I'm going to show you pain"
That was her plan? To torture him?
'Oh God, no. No. Please. Please…'
"In case you start to think you can get out of here…"
She walked to the table again and returned with the hammer.
Leslie could do nothing but bear the excruciating pain as she broke all his toes with the hammer. He cried where he sat as she slammed the hammer against his ankles. It made a sickening noise every time that brought him more agony.
Soon, the pain became too much for his body to take. And his eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fainted.

Reid sat on the chair by the window in the El Paso PD bullpen. The sky had turned a less midnight shade of blue, while the lights outside on the street illuminated his back. His hands seized the warm cup of coffee between them, but his fingers still twitched. The rest of his body seemed to have gone completely still.
Except for his heart. It was beating fast enough to cause palpitations.
"I know, but he needs some time. Look at him"
He heard Emily's voice almost whispering that to… someone. They were already talking like he wasn't there. His mind definitely wasn't. It was somewhere in the past, trying to cope with what Monica had done.
There was no future for them anymore, for her. She was going to kill Christian Leslie. And when they found his body, he would have to play a hand in sending her to prison.
'Monica… in prison…'
He couldn't bring himself to wish that upon her. Knowing too well how horrifying life inside the walls of a prison could be, for a good person, he hoped and prayed Monica hadn't killed Leslie yet. But what were the odds of him getting to her in time? He had already failed once.
"Emily? Emily"
Spencer looked up on hearing the anxiety in JJ's voice. Sergeant Crawford trailed after her, trying to match her speed. JJ was holding a tiny black device in her hand. She held it up for Emily to see, seething with indignation.
"I found this in the window over there"
Sergeant Crawford insisted,
"That is not ours!"
Tara tried to get a look at the device.
"What is it?"
Emily took it from JJ, eyeing it with an unsettling familiarity. She didn't have to say anything. She looked at Reid from across the room, giving him a sad, meaningful glance.
Matt observed,
"That is one high quality bug"
Sergeant Crawford shook his head.
"I have no idea how someone managed to bug the precinct", he sighed, "The Captain is going to have my badge for this"
No one from the BAU commented on that. They exchanged looks with each other, avoiding looking anywhere near Spencer, on purpose. He stared at what he could see of the bug in Emily's hand.

Spencer's fear and grief was slowly being turned into anger and humiliation. It wasn't enough for Monica that she had now ruined three lives, including her own and Veronica's. She had had to betray his trust yet again.
And he was not going to forgive her this time.
"I have to ask, I'm sorry", Emily said.
She stood by his chair. The black device lay before his eyes on her open palm. She asked,
"Have you seen any of these before?"
He managed to shake his head no. Emily said, lowering her voice,
"These are not the sophisticated transmitters you can find on the black market these days. A few millimeters of water would make them useless. They are old school… preferred by British intelligence"
As the whole precinct swooped into action to locate the planted bugs, an officer held one up and announced,
"Found another one!"
Emily turned to Spencer again. She looked sorry to say it.
"Spencer, if this is her… she knew everything we were doing. Every step of the way. I don't have to tell you how many federal laws that violates. If this was her doing..."
With his feet weighing him down like concrete, he got up out of the chair. When Monica's smiling face came to his mind, he shoved the image away, wanting to blot it out forever. The pulse in his throat hurt as he opened his mouth to speak and say,
"We need to bring her in"

'No!'
Monica woke up with a gasp. Sweat clung to her body, soaking the t-shirt she was wearing. Her head felt light, almost dizzyingly light. She attributed that to the scarcity of oxygen in the container. Ignoring the anxiety she felt, she looked at the chair Leslie was strapped to. From behind it, she could see his head slumped to the right side. She had chosen to sleep behind him on purpose – to prevent him from seeing her vulnerable in her sleep and thinking he could overpower her, and to keep an eye on him in case he supposed she had left and tried to make a run for it. There was no way he was running to anywhere again in his life. She had shattered both his kneecaps too last night.
Monica got to her feet and walked to the chair. Leslie was knocked out cold. She had initially been reluctant to shoot him with the elephant tranquilizer again, knowing it would help numb his pain. But there was no alternative. If she meant to get some shut eye, she had to make sure he wasn't awake. If he overpowered her somehow, she was done for. He towered over her by almost a foot and half, and probably weighed thrice her weight. She would have to keep him drugged until…
'What? Until what? Until you kill him?', she asked herself.
Monica choked back the sob that threatened to pour out of her throat, not wanting to admit she wasn't prepared for murder. She took a few deep breaths to gain some control over her emotions, but to no avail. Her brother's face haunted her mind, as painful as the blade of a knife twisting in her heart.
She saw him picking her up after she had fallen off a swing, when she was seven. She saw him staying up all night in that uncomfortable chair, next to her hospital bed. She saw him making Veronica laugh. She saw him playing video games with Max. She saw him lying dead on that stretcher. She saw his pale dead face and his hands…
Monica pushed open the doors of the container and stepped out. She forced herself to remember her training, to wipe out emotions. It took her a minute to realize she was outside the container. Now she had less than six minutes to use the filthy toilet at the back of the yard before one of the night watchmen woke up and saw her.

Monica washed her hands over and over again. Of course she would keep him drugged. Until… until it felt right. Until she felt right. She had felt nothing but revulsion and horror so far. He deserved to be hurt for what he had done to George, to all those women. Wasn't this justice? Wasn't this right?
Then why were her hands shaking? Why did she want to scream and cry at once?
Before she could know what was happening, she sobbed. And in seconds, it turned into weeping. With her head hanging over the wash basin, Monica wept. Her frame shook with the weight of her sadness and guilt. Hollow sobs issued from her chest as tears streamed down her face. She tried to pull herself together, but a cry escaped her mouth. She clamped a hand shut on her mouth. Her body trembled, unable to contain her grief.
When no technique she knew helped her gain even some semblance of control, she channelled her pain into anger. There was someone in her captivity who deserved all the pain she could bring. He was the one who deserved to suffer.

Wiping the tears off her face, Monica felt for the knife in her jeans pocket. She hadn't kept it on the table, not wanting her brother's murderer to have even the slightest chance of breaking free of his restraints. She gripped the hilt of the knife, watched the morning's first rays play on its blade through the window. Then she turned on her feet and set out for Leslie.